Through the trees, the darkness is radiant
by SamieJamesBait
Summary: "I don't know what it is about you, but I don't want to kill you, Bella." He turns to leave, but pauses and turns back to me. Smiling sadistically, he continues, "Yet." Darkward. Dark Theme. It's not a fairy tale. Entry for the Pick a Pic challenge.


**Pick A Pic Challenge**  
**Title: **Through The Tree's, The Darkness Is Radiant  
**Penname: **SamieJamesBait  
**Banner: **#13  
**Rating/ Disclaimer: **NC-17/M  
**Summary: **"I don't know what it is about you, but I don't want to kill you, Bella." He turns to leave, but pauses and turns back to me. Smiling sadistically, he continuous, "Yet." Darkward. Dark Theme. It's not a fairy tale.  
**To see all the stories that are a part of this contest please visit: **www (DOT) fanfiction-challenges (DOT) blogspot (DOT) com

**Warning** - This is a one-shot with Dark Themes. Its content may offend you. Consider yourself warned.

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Through The Trees, The Darkness Is Radiant

* * *

We were in the dead-arse end of nowhere. And I mean nowhere. To our left, right, north and south was nothing bout road and trees. Brilliant.

"I've got no signal," my father, Charlie, spoke aloud to none of us in particular.

"Me neither," My mum, Renee, said, sounding on the edge of a nervous breakdown. She looked around herself hazardously, whipping her head back and forth – like she was expecting someone to jump out of the dark trees and rob us. Like I said, we were in the middle of nowhere, and my mother did not deal well with dark, alienated roads. She hadn't wanted to drive to my grandmother's in the first place. She wanted us to take a plane – which was completely unnecessary, according to Charlie.

_Good job, Dad. Nice one, _I thought sarcastically, watching from the back of the car as they paced in front of the headlights, waving their arms around to gain signal. My sister, Victoria, was asleep in the back seat, in between myself and our elder brother, Seth, who was also sleeping.

Why, _oh dear Jesus why_, did I have to be such a light sleeper? It was not my idea of fun sitting for hours, in the dark, on a deserted road waiting for a pick-up truck with nothing to do but listen to my mother and father argue.

There was a noise in the woods – no doubt from an animal – but my mother screamed, damn near breaking my ear drums in the process, and jumped back into the car. Locking the doors quickly, she ignored my dad's laughter by sticking her hands over her ears and humming loudly. My mother was nothing if not childish.

"Come on, Renee!" my dad called, "It was just an Owl or something."

She ignored him, of course, continuing to hum annoyingly loud.

"Oh, for pity's sake!" I moaned, opening my door and stepping onto the dark road. It wasn't exactly cold, but I shivered as an automatic reaction. I wasn't completely keen on the creepy woods either, to be honest – especially now I was out of the safety of the car.

It was quiet, except for the sound of my father's shoes hitting the ground as he paced around, and the humming of my mother, which was still too loud for my liking, even outside of the vehicle.

"Any luck?" I asked my dad, standing in front of the headlights with him.

His frustrated groan and words he could never use in Church confirmed to me he hadn't.

"Just get back in the car, Bells," he snapped. My father was always soft spoken and kind to us, but he was understandably upset.

Not that I was willing to suffer Renee's humming to appease him.

"Have you _heard_, mum? Could _you_ sit in the car and listen to nothing but her paranoid humming?"

Despite himself, Dad laughed.

"Good point, kid." He dropped the arm holding his phone to his side and smiled at me – although the smile was pretty strained.

"Come on, get in the car. I'll tell her to put a sock in it."

I smiled back at him thankfully and walked back to the car, climbing into my seat. Victoria and Seth were still sound asleep – no surprises there.

As dad pulled my mother's hands from her ears, and berated her for being childish, I rested my head back and closed my eyes, willing the world away for a few hours, or at least until the car miraculously fixed itself.

After a while I drifted off, long after my mother and father had fallen asleep though. Just as I was nearly in the land of nod, a thought flashed through my mind.

_Had I locked the car door?_

(x)

Waking up was a battle. The lines between reality and dreamland seemed blurred.

There was screaming.

There was gunshots.

There was chaos.

And I couldn't open my eyes.

I wasn't sat down anymore, I was aware of that. There was pain in my stomach, and I slowly realised I was being carried over someone's shoulder. I could hear my mother's screams, and Victoria's, but I couldn't make sense of anything.

I still couldn't open my eyes.

What had happened? Had the car exploded? Why would the car have exploded? Maybe there was world war three, and we had broken down in the middle of the battlefield? Or maybe Renee had been right. Maybe there was someone in the woods. Maybe they had attacked us? As I heard another gun-shot ring out, and the screams stopped, I began beating my arms onto the back of whoever was carrying me. My wrists were tied together, but I still gave it all I could. Which admittedly wasn't much. I was still half asleep, and so confused I could barely think.

And I still couldn't see a damn thing!

All I could hear now was the muted pounding of my fist beating against the back of whoever was carrying me…and…and a small chuckle escape their lips. It was only after I heard the chuckle and realised I didn't recognise the laugh, that I became fully aware of the situation – of the danger I was probably in. My heart joined the few sounds I could still hear in the now chilling silence, as my heart rate doubled in fear.

"Put me down!" I screamed – only to be answered with another chuckle.

I heard what sounded like a lock being opened, and then a loud creaking noise, before I was dropped to the floor. The ground was softer than I expected. Grabbing at it with my bound hands to desperately find a way of escape, I realised that it was dirt and not concrete anymore. Awkwardly maneuvering myself to find a wall – which also felt like dirt rather than an actual wall – I felt the unbidden panic and sheer terror block my throat. I couldn't scream or speak. I couldn't even cry.

"Don't worry, Bella," a voice said. "I think you may have just had the luckiest escape of your life."

There was more laughter, then I heard what sounded like a door closing – and, oh God, a lock. I could still feel the cold night air so I knew I wasn't locked inside anywhere, and the dirt lead me to believe I was locked in some kind of pit, but I couldn't be sure. I was still blindfolded.

My head hurt from trying to figure out what the hell was going on, along with having one of my senses obstructed. My body started feeling weak and my limbs became heavy, and the last thing I was aware of before I passed out was distant screams...

X

When I awoke I opened my eyes and could see the light of day. Someone had removed my blindfold as I had been passed out. They hadn't spared the kindness to remove the binds on my wrists, or provide me with a blanket, but I was grateful just to have my sight back.

I could now see I was being kept in a hole in the ground. It looked like someone had dug out a ditch that was barely big enough to fit our family car in. They had made a wooden grate to lock over the top, effectively keeping whoever they threw down there trapped. And in this case I was the unlucky victim. I moved myself, slowly, to a sitting position, with my back against the far mud wall, facing up at the grate opening. There was no way I was having anyone sneak up on me. Not when I was already so defenseless.

I thought of the screaming and gun-shots from last night and wondered about my family. A heavy weight crushed at my chest and I struggled for air as I thought of them. Where were they? Why hadn't the man with the laugh flung them in this ditch with me? And then I remembered. I remembered the last thing my kidnapper had said to me before I passed out. He had said something about me getting a lucky escape. What did he mean by that? Were my family dead? A loud sob broke free of my heavy chest as the thought crossed my mind, and my raw throat burned at the pressure. I couldn't allow myself to think of them now, of all the possibilities. I had to concentrate on getting out.

Looking around my little prison, I noticed... nothing. The pit was empty aside from me. Perfect. Pushing myself to my feet – with a little difficulty as my arms were sore from being bound in front of me - I walked over to the opposite side of the pit and stretched my arms up to the lid of the grate. I couldn't quite reach. I looked around the pit once more, hoping something would magically appear, like say, a stool, or another way out. When I obviously found nothing new in the pit, I tried jumping to reach the wooden grate. I still couldn't reach. I tried clawing my way up the side of the muddy wall. I don't know how long I tried this, but my fingernails were raw and bleeding when I admitted defeat. The sun had set and it was too dark for me to even see my bound hands in front of my face. Scared now, as I always had been of complete darkness, I backed myself up until I was back to the mud wall once more and slid down to rest my tired legs.

I was asleep fairly quickly, my body aching and my throat burning from dehydration. I didn't even have the energy to think about anything other than my annoyance at not having a pillow, as I drifted off.

X

The next time I woke up, it was to the sound of the grate creaking open. Before I'd opened my eyes I allowed myself to fantasise it was someone coming to rescue me. Then I opened my eyes, just as the sound of that now familiar laugh penetrated my ears.

I looked at the man, thankful that I hadn't been blindfolded again as I slept. My eyes took a moment to adjust to the semi-darkness. Then they focused and I saw him. He was taller than me, taller than Victoria even and she was tall. He was more muscular than Seth, but not as muscular as Paul, Seth's boyfriend. He was looking at me with a crooked smile, his hands behind his back. He was younger than I expected, he looked about eighteen, my age. Why would anyone my age do something like this? What was wrong with him? He was good-looking, so he didn't have the excuse of the "Wrong-turn" syndrome. Despite myself, I felt nervous under his scrutiny, and for the most bizarre, inexplicable reason I wished I didn't look and smell like shit.

The he produced the knife he was holding behind his back, and suddenly my eyes had no problem seeing in the dim-light. Everything was crystal clear, especially the glint on the tip of the blade he was holding. They say in such situations as this you have two automatic reactions: fight or flight? I had none of these options open to me. My reaction was anti-climactic as the realization hit that my life was over. I just sat and stared at the good-looking guy who had come to murder me, with a blank expression on my face. I looked straight into his eyes as he moved towards me, and when he was close enough that I could see the colour of his eyes, some distant part of my brain noted how piercing the green was around the black of his pupils. For the most part though, my mind was blank. There was no flash of my entire life in epic movie style. There was no blood-curdling scream, or begging for mercy. In fact, I sat motionless, and looked straight into the eyes of my killer, as he paused in front of me with his crooked smile still in place.

With the hand not holding the knife, he gripped the plastic joiners that bound my hands and pulled me to my feet. Now I was trapped between him and the wall. He closed the space between us until his body was flush against mine, and his chest was in my line of sight. I raised my head to look at him, and saw the most peculiar expression flicker across his face.

I was looking into his eyes. He was looking into my eyes. My heart was beating so hard and fast I was sure he could feel it against his chest. His hands were either side of me, on the mud wall. My breathing was loud. His breathing was loud.

I wasn't sure what to expect. I didn't know what he was going to do with the knife. I didn't even care. I was captivated by the strange intimacy of the moment. The strange sensations fluttering through my body were confusing. I wasn't sure if it was fear or... or pleasure?

I only had a moment to think this through. It was there, in that dark pit, with the boy that had taken me and possibly hurt my family, the boy who held a knife and at any moment was likely to end my life, that I experienced my first kiss.

When his lips touched mine I wasn't sure if I was overcome with relief that he hadn't stuck the knife in me, or if I was just being hormonal. Whatever it was, I kissed him back. The kiss wasn't tender. It was rough, he would bite my bottom lip occasionally and move his lips to bit my neck and ear lobe as I moaned.

It was the best kiss anyone could ever have had. Better than the movies. Better than the romance novels. It was raw, passionate, tinged with hate and fury. And the outcome was plagued with danger. After this kiss I would likely be murdered.

It was this thought that made me react. Mid-kiss I brought my knee fast and hard into the boy's groin, then pushed him aside and ran for the exit. The momentum of my short run, and the pure adrenaline I was running on proved a heady enough combination for me to half-jump, half-pull myself out of the pit. As soon as my feet hit the forest floor I was running. The dawn was breaking now, winning the battle for the night sky and I could see, at least, what was in front of me. I wasn't sure if I was running in the right direction, but I remembered it wasn't such a long distance from the road we had been driving on to the pit I had been imprisoned in.

"Bella!" The guy's voice was ear crushing in the silence of the dense trees. I had no doubt now that when he caught me he would kill me.

"Bella!" His voice sounded so much closer this time. I wasn't sure how far behind me he was. And wait – how did he know my name?

Fighting my way through bushes and having twigs scratch at my arms, I miscalculated how close a fallen log was in front of me, and jumped too soon.

The pain of smacking my face into the side of the log was overwhelming, and for a second I thought the throbbing in my head would kill me. Then I heard that familiar laugh and realised it wasn't the fall that would kill me, it was him.

"What do you want from me?" I asked. Not even bothering to move from my face down position on the ground.

"I don't know," he replied, sounding for the first time uncertain.

"Where's my family?" I asked, closing my eyes and bracing myself for bad news.

"Somewhere you don't want to be."

I started to cry. "Are they alive?"

"For now," he replied, gripping the back of my jacket and pulling me off the ground.

Once I was standing, facing him with his arm wrapped around me still gripping my jacket, I looked him straight in the eyes and asked him, "Are you going to kill me?"

He smiled that crooked smile once more and silently flung me over his shoulder and began walking us back to the pit.

Once we were back he dropped me to the ground, before climbing back in after me. He grabbed the knife from the floor and walked towards me once more. Instead of sticking the knife in my stomach like I expected, he cut the plastic ties that bound my hands, freeing my wrists. I automatically began rubbing them, trying to ease some of the ache.

"I don't know what it is about you, but I don't want to kill you, Bella," he said, turning to leave. Then he paused and turned back to me. Smiling sadistically, he continued, "Yet."

X

The next few days the boy visited me several times a day. He would bring me food and water and watch me in silence as I ravished them. He questioned me about my life and I answered in vague descriptions, sometimes just all out lying. The sinister laugh and crooked smile had been absent his past few visits. He had actually seemed almost..._nice._

It wasn't until the ninth day that I found out his name. He was called Edward. I found this out when, on one of the many days he was watching me eat, we were visited by someone I found out to be called Esme. Esme was a small, slim woman. She looked so much like Edward that I assumed it was his mother, although he called her Esme. Her voice was so soft and her smile so welcoming that I thought she may be here to convince Edward to let me go. That was until she spoke.

"Oh, Edward. I do wish you would let us play with Bella as well." She spoke in a soft, warm voice. Looking from Edward to me, she smiled. "You would like that wouldn't you, honey? You'd like to see your family again, right?"

I nodded my head automatically – Edward had not mentioned anything about my family since the day I had tried to escape.

"NO!" Edward shouted at Esme. "She is _mine_".

Esme's smile faltered, and for a moment she looked so sad I felt an urge to comfort her.

"But, Edward. She is exquisite. Look at her beautiful skin...My blade would make the most beautiful patterns across it. I bet her blood is the purest crimson..." She sighed wistfully.

"I said _no_, Esme. Now leave here and don't come back. I told you all that you had the rest to play with. Bella is mine. Nobody else is to touch her."

I finally realised what this beautiful, kind looking woman was saying. She was calmly discussing how she would like to make me bleed. How she would like to torture me. Is that what was happening to my family?

Edward ushered Esme out, but not before she waved at me. It was the single most terrifying sight I had ever seen. Especially now that I knew the malice that lay behind her soft brown eyes.

He looked at me, and for the first time since I had met him, he looked genuinely frightened for me. He walked towards me, wrapped me in his arms and kissed the top of my dirty, tangled hair.

"I promise everything will be okay. They won't be back here again. Don't worry about them. I'll keep you safe." He sounded so sincere that it made me smile, and I had no choice but to feel safe. Even though he was keeping me here against my will, and had not yet told me _he_ _wouldn't_ kill me.

He pulled his head back slightly and kissed me once more. This time it was with a blinding urgency, like at any moment I would disappear in a puff of smoke and he would be left alone.

I was swept up in the moment. I kissed him back. It may have been him who guided us both to the ground. It might have been him who lay on top of me, kissing me with an intense passion that made me believe he would keep me safe. It may have been Edward who had started this, but I was the one who made it progress.

I frantically moved his jacket from his shoulders and pushed at it until he pulled it completely off. It was me who wrapped my legs around him and pulled him closer into me. So close that it was too much. So close that it wasn't enough. His lips traveled to my neck... _kissing_..._licking._.._biting_. It was frenzied. It was brutal. It was so fucking good.

When he entered me, I was stunned by the pain. It was not something you could rationalise. The pain came from _inside_. I couldn't ask him to stop. I didn't want him to stop. The pain made me more frantic, more urgent. It was as though the world was ending. Maybe it was. Who knew? Who cared?

Time passed, the night sky darkened. The air chilled as our skin covered itself in perspiration. We were both as naked as the day we were born, but it didn't matter. We weren't making love, we were fucking. In the most raw, basic sense. It was fast paced. It was painful. It was the best pleasure I had ever felt in my life as something erupted from just above where we were joined. It exploded through my entire body, right through to my finger tips. As if he knew, Edward kissed each finger, as he came down from his own orgasm. The result of said orgasm was hot and sticky between my legs, mingled with blood. He was still inside me. He made no attempt to move.

"Fuck. What are you doing to me?" he moaned as he traced kisses along my jaw.

I didn't reply. What else was there to say?  
-

X

He left long after I had fallen asleep, and returned long after I had woken up. In all, he was gone for over a day. Two sun rises, one sun set.

When he returned, he was withdrawn. I wasn't sure what I was expecting, but his complete indifference was not it. I walked towards his side of the pit, tentatively wrapping my arms around his neck as he sat on the ground.

"Are you okay?" I asked him, hoping beyond hope he wasn't going to give me over to Esme.

"Get off me, Bella." His voice was harsh.

I was angry. How dare he treat me like this? His mood swings were giving me whiplash! I began to cry, and he continued to ignore me. He didn't even look at me.

"I just can't understand what you want from me, Edward. One minute you're so nice..." I paused, choking on the lump in my throat. Clearing it with a cough but leaving the tears that ran down my cheeks, "...and then the next minute you're so cruel." I looked at his face and saw no hint of emotion. The tears came harder. "You can't keep me here forever!" I screamed in frustration. I backed up to my side and pressed my back against the wall, sliding down the mud and sitting on the ground, hugging my knees to my chest.

After a while, once I had stopped crying – for tears never appealed to Edward – he finally spoke.

"It's just us now, Bella. I got rid of all of them. You don't need to worry, they won't be back. You'll never have to feel fear at their hands again." He was all serious and smoldering as he said this. Then he smiled at me, and in the same way it had done since the day he first kissed me, my heart rate increased. "That doesn't mean I won't do what I want with you, Bella. I just killed my whole family for you, just to keep you safe. To keep you _mine_. You do love me, don't you?"

I nodded my head furiously, not really sure anymore whether I just nodded because I knew that was what he wanted, or because I genuinely cared for him.

"Good."

He didn't tell me he loved me back, and I couldn't hide the disappointment on my face. My lips set in a firm frown and I rose back to my feet, beginning to turn around to face the wall – to signal I no longer wanted to talk.

And then he spoke again, from the darkness across the pit.

"And, by the way, I adore you..." He sounded genuine, his voice warm.

I smiled, through Stockholm syndrome or genuine attraction I was not sure, but I smiled. That was until he finished his sentence.

"... I adore you... in frightening, dangerous ways."

And then that familiar sadistic smile was back and he was walking towards me.

* * *

**A/N:** I know that most girls do not orgasm their first time... but Bella is one lucky girl :)

Oh, and I know that this story is fictional. Normal girls don't screw their abductors. I get that.

'Wrong-turn' is a film that... Well just IMDB it and you will understand the reference.

Thanks for reading.


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